Cross posted at Balkinization Big news in the past day is the Obama administration’s announcement that a Somali national captured by the U.S. military somewhere in the Gulf has been transferred to New York for federal prosecution on terrorism-related charges. According to the Justice Department (DOJ), the man, Warsame, was “questioned for intelligence purposes for more than two months” after his...
I'm under the pump because of a deadline, but I wanted to call readers' attention to a short editorial at OpenDemocracy.net written by Victor Kattan about the PLO/PA's intention to ask the UN General Assembly to recognize Palestinian statehood in September. Victor discusses a variety of interesting diplomatic and legal aspects of that intention, including the possibility that the PLO/PA...
Humberto Leal is scheduled for execution in Texas on July 7th. A Mexican national, Leal was not notified of his right to consular assistance under the Vienna Convention of Consular Relations. In light of the International Court of Justice's decision in the Avena case (Mexico v. U.S.), Congress is currently working on legislation to bring the U.S. into compliance with its international...
I am delighted to announce the publication of my book "The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law." The book can be ordered from Oxford University Press here; Amazon should have it (at a whopping $8.78 discount) in the next few days. Here for the last time is the cover: Once again, I want to thank...
Earlier today, the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review (CMCR) held in U.S. v. Hamdan that material support for terrorism is a war crime and thus within the jurisdiction of the military commissions. The decision represents the apotheosis of the US's utterly self-referential approach to international law, because the CMCR managed to reach that conclusion without citing a single non-American...
Apologies for the light blogging the past couple of weeks -- although the upside is that I am now officially Dr. Heller, having successfully defended my dissertation at Leiden University in the Netherlands a few days ago. It was an amazing (and amazingly formal) experience, and I'll blog about it once I get the official photos from the university. I've been...
Those who have followed the cases relating to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (VCCR) here in the United States and at the ICJ know that the United States has a compliance problem. The United States does not provide the 'judicial review and reconsideration' remedy that the ICJ has indicated is required in the event a violation of an...
In Serbia, not surprisingly: Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb general accused of overseeing the worst massacre in Europe since the end of World War II, has been arrested, Serbian authorities said Thursday. Mladic is Europe's most wanted war crimes suspect for his alleged role in the 1995 slaughter of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the enclave of Srebrenica,...
Members of Falun Gong have filed suit against Cisco, alleging the company collaborated with the Chinese government to develop and maintain “Golden Shield” technology. As a result of this technology, Falun Gong members have allegedly suffered “severe and gross abuses, including false imprisonment, torture, cruel assault, battery, and wrongful death.” The complaint, filed by my former colleague Lee Boyd and...
According to TPM Muckraker, the DOJ has authorized prosecutors to indict John Edwards. So in case you were wondering about the Obama administration's priorities, here they are: violating election laws to cover up an affair, not acceptable. Ordering torture, no problem. Glad we cleared that up....
This according to the New York Times: The charges — brought by prosecutors Mr. Mubarak had appointed — included hints that former subordinates might testify against him, as onetime allies and government insiders turn on one another. A Cairo criminal court is expected to set a trial date within days, and the Egyptian people could soon see the leader...
The following post was written by Luna Droubi. Droubi, who is Syrian American, was Editor in Chief of the New York Law School Law Review from 2010-2011 and received her J.D. this month. As a child, I remember sitting with my grandfather on my grandparent's balcony in Homs, Syria on hot, sticky summer nights. We'd swat away at mosquitoes as...
